- Compact discs could be history within five years, superseded
by a new generation of fingertip-sized memory tabs with no moving parts.
-
- Each paper-thin device could store more than a gigabyte
of information - equivalent to 1,000 high-quality images - in one cubic
centimetre of space.
-
- Scientists have developed the technology by melding together
organic and inorganic materials.
-
- They say it could be used to produce a single-use memory
card that permanently stores data and is faster and easier to operate than
a CD.
-
- Turning the invention into a commercially viable, mass-marketed
product may take as little as five years, it is claimed.
-
- The card would not involve any moving parts, such as
the laser and motor drive required by compact discs. Its secret is the
discovery of a previously unknown property of a commonly-used conductive
plastic coating.
-
- Scientists at Princeton University, New Jersey, and the
computer giant Hewlett-Packard combined the polymer with silicon-based
electronics.
-
- Stephen Forrest, a professor of electrical engineering
at Princeton, said: "We are hybridising. We are making a device that
is organic [the plastic polymer] and inorganic [the thin-film silicon]
at the same time."
-
- The device would be like a standard recordable CD (CD-R),
in that writing data on to it makes permanent changes and can only be done
once. But it would also resemble a computer memory chip, because it would
plug directly into an electronic circuit and have no moving parts.
-
- "The device could probably be made cheaply enough
that one-time use would be the best way to go," Prof Forrest said.
-
- A report in the journal Nature described how the researchers
identified a new property of a polymer called PEDOT.
-
- PEDOT, which is clear and conducts electricity, has been
used for years as an anti-static coating on photographic film.
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- ©2003 Scotsman.com
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- http://www.news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1251862003
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